by Jimmy Guieu
Yuln and Tlyka rushed back to their ships while Nylak closed the big airlock door. The two flying saucers rose three feet off the metal floor. With the sound of swishing silk they slowly left the base and hovered over the sand 100 yards away.
Led by their rescuers the scientists stepped cautiously over the topside of their former “flying prison” and were soon trudging through the sand. They filled their lungs with the warm, desert air and squinted against the blinding rays of the setting sun. All of a sudden a long shadow stretched over the ground and covered the group. Everyone looked up and uttered their astonishment.
Without a sound of approach an enormous, spindle-shaped ship was coming straight down out of the sky. 3,000 feet long and 500 feet in diameter, the monstrous spaceship, glittering in the dying sunlight, appeared to be red and yellow. The fantastic metal rocket—a torpedo with a double row of windows in the front—landed. Theoretically, a mass of metal like this, weighing hundreds of millions of tons, should have sunk into the sand. Paradoxically, the huge machine looked like it barely touched the surface of the desert, only 100 yards away from the Earthlings.
“That’s our astrobase,” Zimko explained, pointing proudly at the giant ship where a hatch in the belly was opening. He continued his explanation, “It’s what you Earthlings call a ‘flying cigar.’ There are smaller ones, anywhere from 100 to 600 feet long, that fly over Earth. But generally these space giants, like you see here, don’t land very often. Their mission is to patrol from one solar system to another, or one planet to another, transporting the squadrons of flying discs, the Flying Saucers.”
“So, these are Saucer-carriers just like we have warships that are aircraft carriers,” Dormoy remarked, in awe of the frightening realization of this super-evolved civilization.
“Exactly. The Americans have come up with a term for it: Mother Ship44. Our reconnaissance discs being the flying saucers, which are seen pretty much everywhere after leaving the ‘Flying Cigar’ in the astronomical vicinity of the planet to be observed. They accomplish their reconnaissance or ground missions and go back to the astrobase, the ‘Flying Cigar.’ We have one or two of these giant spaceships operating in every solar system. The two that today are on Pluto where our technicians set up the latest supply base—the first being put a long time ago on the moon—can’t move. Therefore, I called the closest one available from the solar system Alpha Centauri.”
“You mean that this ship came here in one hour from a planet in Alpha Centauri?!” the Danish astronomer Nordling exclaimed. “Don’t you know that this star system is four light years from Earth and according to Einstein’s equation of the speed of light it’s impossible for a moving object to…”
“That’s one of the many misconceptions of earthly science,” the Man from Outer Space broke in, also raising his hand in salute to the Polarians who were walking over from the flying cigar.
Fifteen bronze-skinned men were now surrounding our friends. All of them, like Zimko, were wearing uniforms of the Space Legion: turquoise jacket narrow at the waist with a thick belt around it holding the holster for the disintegrator cone on the right side, a dark red bodysuit, short black boots and dark blue insulated gloves.
The superior officer raised his hand in response to Zimko. “Right after receiving your last message we sent a squad after the Denebian disc. We shot it down just as it was sending another message. We don’t know if the enemy astrobase got any of that message and if it did, if it was an important part.”
Showing his friendly smile to the scientists staring at him and his men, the Polarian officer added, “So, these are our new ‘guests’. Welcome to the Alliance, Earthling Friends, and I’m sorry for the cavalier manner in which you were kidnapped. It’s obvious that the Denebians who captured you were copying our methods. But where you were prisoners of theirs, with us you are free. These monsters would have stamped your brains with orders making you their agents and accomplices on Earth. You would have become traitors to the human race. We Polarians will tell you everything you don’t know about our scientific technology in order to benefit the New World.”
Before going back to the scientists who were getting ready (still dazed by their adventure) to enter the monstrous flying cigar, Professor Yegov bid an emotional farewell to the Polarian and the explorers. He kissed the young Russian on the cheek and left, knowing that he would see all these fortuitous friends again someday when he came back to Earth to organize the society on new, peaceful bases after the enemy was conquered.
Doniatchka Petrovna looked on thoughtfully as the professor walked away. She glanced at Zimko, who had his backed turned, watching the Earthlings board the ship. A kind of distress choked her up. She grabbed Dormoy’s hand with her own trembling hand and stayed by his side. Wasn’t the Polarian going to order her to follow her compatriot into the far-off solar system lost in the frightening depths of the Galaxy?
No, Doniatchka, she identified the telepathic voice of Zimko in her head. Not for the moment at last. Michel Dormoy would rather keep you near him and I see no problem with that. You’ll be the doctor of our team here on Earth.
She had the weird feeling that she heard a quiet laugh echo through her brain. Looking away, she secretly wiped away her tears of joy. Dormoy caressed her head, feeling the sweet touch of her cheek against his. And he murmured, “Zimko was right.”
The Russian girl’s big blue eyes watched him, smiling and still leaking tears. She was surprised and confused. “You heard?”
“Our friend figured it best to share his thoughts in my mind. Obviously we need a doctor in our ‘commando team’ since we’ve been chosen to participate in the Earth-Polarian missions…”
“So, it’s simply for that!” she pushed him away.
“Adorable fool,” the geophysician teased, pulling her back into his embrace.
The metal ladder was drawn back into the huge flanks of the space giant and the hatch closed up. The metal mastodon rose up slowly as easily as a common helicopter but perfectly silent. It gained altitude and suddenly the Denebian base in the desert rose up after it. It wobbled gently in the air and then shot off into space.
“But… it’s taking off!” Angelvin was surprised by Zimko’s indifference.
“Of course,” Zimko replied. “You didn’t think that we were going to leave the enemy base in the desert did you? It’s being taken care of by our giant ‘cigar’—thanks to a gravito-magnetic beam—and will be transported back to our planetary capital.”
“And the Denebians?”
“They’ll suffer the same fate that they would have reserved for us if they had got the upper hand: death by disintegration. But they won’t suffer like they made some of ours suffer after falling into their hands.”
Tlyka put her hand on Zimko’s shoulder. “Since our mission was successful, I think you should have received a confirmation of our requested break?”
“The break has been granted. We’ve got 24 hours now. But we can’t leave Earth. The orders are strict.”
“I was hoping to spend our break on the lunar base,” Tlyka pouted. “And I’m sure that our Earthling friends would be delighted to visit their satellite.”
“I think so too!” Jenny piped up, smiling at Angelvin. “Don’t you, Robert?”
“Oh me, you know, I go to the moon all the time,” he laughed. “But with you I wouldn’t mind at all staying here on Earth.”
Yuln and Kariven looked at each other full of tender promises just as Dormoy and Doniatchka did. Someone quietly clearing their throat brought them back to earth.
“Excuse me for interrupting your romantic interlude,” Nylak smiled, “but since I also have 24 hours off, please don’t forget that a girl with pale blue eyes, Ogny, is waiting for me in Alaska.”
“Brrrr!” Zimko shivered and asked his friend, “Don’t tell me you want to spend a weekend in the ice?” Seeing his almost heartbroken face he gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder, “Go join your Ogny with pale blue eyes and give her our best
. Come back tomorrow at this time to our permanent base. And don’t get messed up with the time zones.”
A few minutes later the two spaceships shot off into space, each taking a different direction.
In the meantime, crossing the ether at astounding speed the second Denebian base was coming into the solar system, headed for planet Earth. Before being disintegrated by the Polarian squadron chasing after it, the enemy saucer had been able to alert the base, which immediately set off to replace the captured base on Earth.
The colossal spaceship circled the globe once before descending slowly on Australia. It landed silently in the middle of the Victoria Desert, around 300 feet from the where the first base was located. The Polarians would never dream of looking for them in this place. They would never imagine that their enemies would have the audacity to set up a second rally point in the same area.
Their reckoning was simple and not without common sense.
While our friends on board the disc piloted by Yuln were flying toward a secret destination, while the huge Denebian spaceship was setting up in Australia, General Morgan, Commander of the Air Technical Intelligence in Washington DC was in a meeting at the Pentagon with the best agents of the Special Branch created by Project Blue Book.
In the big, concrete room located in the basements of the daunting building, the Saucermen (as they were called in jest) were sitting around a long, metal table covered with a steely gray waterproof varnish. Before them at arm’s reach were lying piles of files, questionnaires and reports.
Although General Morgan was around 50 years old, he barely looked 40. He had a thin, black moustache, brown, shifting eyes, a square jaw and black, slightly wavy hair. His impeccable uniform added to his elegance. Though loved by his subordinates he could be, when necessary, firmly authoritative with a loud, cutting voice. And tonight he was proving it.
Standing up at the end of the table the general smashed his fist down on the mountain of files in front of him. “Reports,” he growled, “more reports, always reports! We have 18,000 observation reports gathered since 1947. The flying saucers are in pretty much every country and—the height of irony—they’ve even taunted us over the White House45 in defiance of the laws that they don’t give a damn about. Obviously we’ve made all the media believe that these UFOs are weather balloons, kites or a mild form of mass hysteria, but these explanations are growing stale. The press is starting to ask uncomfortable questions. Weather balloons and all the other ‘hot air’ don’t satisfy anyone but imbeciles. Yes, I know, you have to think that we, too, at first, during the Kenneth Arnold affair46, believed that it was just a mirage or a hoax. But now we know. Flying saucers come from another world. And their occupants, those hideous green monsters with scaly skin, are walking among us… or almost.
“It didn’t take much for the journalists to discover the truth about the Mocambo incident in Los Angeles. The three who died mysteriously during the costume party were easily passed off as what they were thought to be: disguised dancers… poisoned by a criminal. However, after the kidnapping of the three Australian scientists last night by a flying saucer piloted by these same green creatures with reptilian skin, the evening press made the connection… embarrassing to say the least. The Washington Post and the New York Herald,” the general berated them, shaking the two newspapers in his hand, “have also made a connection with the many other disappearances of scientists around the world and the spectacular abduction of the three rocketeers in Woomera.
“How much longer can we hide the truth? Soon the people won’t be satisfied with our silly press releases. These killjoys of private investigators of flying saucers have already hit the bull’s eye in their publications when they say that the flying saucers are not of earthly origin47.
“With the help of a few papers and with the ignorant good faith of certain astronomers blinded by outdated dogma, we’ve tried to destroy the extra-terrestrial hypothesis among the population in general and the ‘cult of flying saucers’ in particular. But in vain. More and more civilians and, I have to admit, a number of superior officers who don’t know everything we know, are openly expressing their belief in the ‘outer space’ origin of the flying discs. We will soon need to make amends and tell the public that the extravagant claims and flights of fancy of the science fiction magazines and novels fall short of the truth in their flying saucer stories!
“Do you realize the panic that’s going to run through the people when we announce the truth? No more innocent reports debunking the eyewitnesses. We’ll be forced to admit that the planet is being watched, spied on for years by the green-skinned pseudo-men with yellow-striped red eyes, these monsters from another world, some of whom are already among us, dressing up and going out at night or during the day with their faces covered with bandages so they don’t scare the public.”
“General, can I say something?” one of the Special Branch agents asked. Around 30 years old he was a civilian, like all his colleagues and had been trying to get a word in for some time.
The Commander looked at him and wiping his forehead, said, “Please, Sullivan, speak up.”
“I ask you, General, to consider what I’m going to suggest with the utmost seriousness. It’s not a bad joke… Do you really think that these green creatures are the only ones on Earth that come from another planet?”
Special agent Ted Sullivan had asked this calmly. His eyes scrutinized everyone at the meeting. All his colleagues were staring at him, some intrigued, others smiling sarcastically.
“What do you mean, Sullivan?”
“I was at the Mocambo, mingling with the dancers in costumes and waiting for the possible appearance of the green monsters. An eyewitness had, in fact, reported to the ATIC about the landing of a flying saucer at Lake Arrowhead about 60 miles from Los Angeles. When this witness said that he had seen ‘green men’ come out, we were put on alert and prioritized our precautions. As expected three of these creatures went to the only place with a costume party that night: the Mocambo.”
“I know all this since I gave the orders myself to our agents to attend all costume parties. Cut to the chase, Sullivan.”
“I went there, General. And I was watching these three when all of a sudden they stopped in the middle of a dance for a few seconds—surprising their partners—then going back to dancing normally. This sudden, simultaneous halt intrigued me. I informed Holloway, Gardner and Harrison who were in tuxedos like me and mingling with the crowd. They’d noticed it to.”
The special agents named by Sullivan nodded in agreement.
“Consequently, when the three monsters were at the bar, I noticed that they froze for no apparent reason. Tense, disturbed, they seemed to be listening to something. Their masks—black velvet wolves—didn’t let me see their eyes, but I’m sure they were preoccupied by… by something or other that eluded us. One minute later they collapsed, all three together, dead by something mysterious that our physiologists couldn’t explain.”
Special agent Gardner spoke up, “I share Sullivan’s opinion, General. And I take the liberty to remind you that our agents in France have lost all traces of the three Frenchmen, Kariven, Dormoy and Angelvin who cut short their vacation and left Los Angeles to go back home… right after the incident with the Kaiser.
“McKensie’s report we recently received from Paris says that these three men escaped an attack on Kariven’s building. A heat ray shot from a Citroën Traction slowing down as it went by was aimed at them. The ray melted the frosted glass and the metal bars of the front door before burning up an old lady who was about to leave. Their trail stops there. They went up to Kariven’s apartment, received a visit from the police investigating the attack and didn’t come back out. The concierge got a telephone call from this Jean Kariven asking him to turn off his lights that he’d left on by mistake before leaving. Kariven was calling from outside. Now, the concierge confirmed that he didn’t see Kariven, Dormoy or Angelvin leave. Moreover, the concierge of another building on the next str
eet and an elderly tenant both said they were startled by three individuals leaving their building in quite a hurry… but they’d never seen them come in. We can deduce that these three were our three French vacationers. Why did they use the roofs to leave their apartment? Did they want to throw our agents off their tracks… or were they afraid of something else?”
The General passed his hand nervously over his face and sneered, “This story is driving us all crazy! So, you think that these three Frenchmen were afraid of the green monsters or… other beings from outer space? Why?”
“I don’t know, General. But I have the feeling that right under our noses some men… Earthlings, have a bone to pick with the monsters or are messing around with them… or with the others.”
“It’s like trying to square the circle or the triangle in this case!” the General railed. “At the top we have the green monsters, in one corner down below are the Earthlings, certain Earthling connected with the top—how and why?—and in the opposite corner are the others. But what others? Invisible beings or creatures who would make the green monsters look like beauty queens?
“We’re chasing our tails around this triangle. Gentlemen, this cannot last! I need specific information, detailed testimony and not just observation reports telling where and when the grocer on the corner or the farmer picking strawberries in the field saw a bright, round object in the sky. I could care less about that. We need to capture one of these ships whatever it takes and make its occupants talk because these green monsters speak English, that we know since they’ve got the balls to go costume parties…”
His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “Costume parties! Beings from another planet are going out dancing in American nightclubs! That takes the cake. It’s like some crazy science fiction story. It seems unbelievable. It is unbelievable and yet, by God, it’s the truth!
“I’m going to give new orders to our Ground Observer Corps. I’ll mobilize every fighter jet on all the American bases around the globe if I have to and I’ll order them to shoot down the first flying saucer that even looks like it’s charging at one of our planes. In this case the fighter could call it ‘legitimate defense’ and down the disc. From now on the DX 97 ionospheric planes are going to take off from secret hangars with their 6,000 miles an hour48. I really hope they’ll blast one these damned ships!”
